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Mouse Chat Disney Review –
50’s Prime Time Cafe Detailed Review
Our Detailed Review of 50’s Prime Time Cafe
50’s Prime Time Cafe is at Disney Hollywood Studios. So it requires park admission to dine here. The cafe of course is decorated to look like a home from the 1950’s and the waiters and waitresses are also sort of actors and actresses that play the part of your brothers and sisters at the dining table. You are also looking at traditional home-style meals, like meat loaf and vegetables. So overall this makes for a fun and unique experience.
Restaurant Concept Rating: 9 – This is a 9 out of a scale from one to ten. The restaurant themeing, decor, wait area, bar all look amazing. You are transported to a 1950’s home with wall art, old black and white TV’s, Disney did an amazing job. Now if you are looking for a fancy steak place, of course this is not it. If you want a fun family experience, or are celebrating a Birthday, this restaurant is designed to create a fun memorable experience.
50’s Prime Time Service Rating: 1 – I gave 50’s Prime Time the lowest possible score for service. Actually the service was the worst I think I have ever had anywhere.
The service was so bad that I was scared to complain and just wanted the dinner to end so we could leave. And this is how all 20 people in our party felt. That’s not how a meal for 20 people to celebrate a Birthday should feel at a price tag of over $600.00. Plus of course everyone in our party had to pay park admission to Disney Hollywood Studios and for our family of four we actually came to the Park just for the 50’s Prime Time Meal and the park closed during our dinner. So for the four of us that’s another $400 just to walk into 50’s Prime Time Cafe.
So why does Disney’s 50 Prime Time Cafe get the worst service rating ever? Our server. Our server was rude, upset, unprofessional, and nasty at times. At first it appeared to be part of the 50’s Prime Time “Act”. The overall act at 50’s is to make someone sit in a corner for not eating their vegetables, have fun with the clients, etc. But no this was not our experience at all, our waiter was so pissed off that everyone felt uncomfortable. Everything was rushed, none of our tables were ever cleared off. Every plate from the time we started until dessert was left on every persons place. Drinks were randomly filled. Stuff was crammed everywhere. When he tipped over the tray of milkshakes he lost it and shouted out loud a few choice words and left the room. Another waitress came to help and he snapped at her. One person in our party changed her dessert selection and of course the first choice was brought instead of the corrected dessert choice. Of course it was never corrected on the bill and trying to divide the bills later was another painful exercise.
Then to top it off all 20 of us are dressed in 50’s clothing to try and make this a special occasion for a friends 60th birthday. Wow what a disaster. Even more amazing was that a manager never came over to any of our three tables to talk with us. And several of the wait staff at 50’s Prime Time knew what a disaster it was. Even if a manager had walked by they should have seen every plate sitting on our tables for the entire experience and that might have been a good clue that something was wrong. Should one of us walked over to a manger and complained. YES we should have! But we all just wanted it to end and to make the best of a bad situation for our friends 60th celebration.
50’s Prime Time Food Rating: 7 – I gave 50’s Prime Time Cafe a 7 for the food out of ten. It’s difficult because some food we ordered was not what was received and for fear of being yelled at by our waiter we just ate what was placed in front of us. That said the food is what you would expect at a cafe and a rating of 7 is great. Meatloaf, Vegetables, Pot Roast, Left Over and Fried Chicken all got high reviews. Prime Time has good food at a good Disney price point. You feel like you are getting what you paid for when it comes to the food at 50’s. I will ask those in our party to post their experience and what their food reviews below in the comments section. That way you can get some ideas what the popular dining choices are at 50’s Prime Time Cafe for your trip.
Should I go to 50’s Prime Time Cafe?
Overall Rating:
50’s Prime Time Decor and Theme: 9 out of ten stars
50’s Prime Time Cafe Service: 1 out of Ten Stars
50’s Prime Time Food: 7 out of ten stars
For my overall rating of 50’s Prime Time Cafe I have to say it’s definitely worth going. What? You just gave the service a rating of ONE! Yes, but we watched all the other servers in the restaurant and they were fantastic. A few even came over to our tables and spent some time with us. If I had a reservation and got the same waiter that we had before I would walk out. I understand people have bad days, we all do, but nobody should have that type of service. Be sure to listen to our Mouse Chat 50’s Prime Time Dining review here at the top of this page or on iTunes for all the details.
So don’t cancel your 50’s Prime Time Disney Dining Reservation. One bad experience does not mean you should never go there. 50’s Prime time has all the makings for an amazing family vacation experience and the staff that I watched around the rest of the restaurant was amazing.
We would love to hear your 50’s Prime Time Cafe Dining Experience. Please post your comments below to share with others.
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I used to LOVE going to 50’s Prime Time Cafe. It was such a fun interactive experience. But the last 3 times I have been it has been awful. I must have had the same server that all of you had on my last visit. He was so grumpy. He complained about his hours and the crowds. Then talked about how he also worked at Universal. It was my daughter’s birthday meal and he totally ruined it with his bad attitude. I have reservations with a friend there in March, but I am considering canceling it because it’s is just not the fun experience that it used to be. I go there for the experience, not the hear cast members gripe.
Hi, Julia,
Sorry to hear about your bad experience at 50’s Prime Time Cafe. Yeah there seems to be one person that is not happy to be working at 50’s Prime Time cafe. Hopefully that changes.
When we went, it was very busy, so the waiter we had didn’t interact at all. My wife was rather happy because she didn’t want to be force fed any vegetables. The waitress next to us at the table of 5 was hilarious! I haven’t had a bad experience like you describe in the podcast, but it would have been nice to received some interaction.
Hi – I just wanted to comment on you scooter experiences.
My husband is a 30 year wheelchair user. He does not walk at all. He’s a healthy muscular guy, but I thought you might be interested to get some prospective from a “non walking” person. First, regarding Disney, it is one of the most accessible places to vacation – hotels, buses, parks. We really appreciate the effort they make to be accessible. Most staff is very cheerful about accommodating people with a disability. They have also improved regarding their understanding of disability needs – for example, the question, “can you walk a few steps” or “can you transfer” indicates they realize there is quite a variety of needs.
Regarding getting on rides, our experiences are quite different from yours. I break down rides into “totally accessible” “moderately easy transfer”, “challenging transfer” and “not accessible at all”.
So for example rides like Small World, Living with the Land, Nemo ride, Toy story Mania, and all theater attractions, are totally accessible. Sometimes there is a long wait for an accessible vehicle. Rides like Soaring, and Start Tours are any easy transfer. Most of the rides that require a transfer are challenging – for example, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Rockin’ Rollercoaster, Spaceship Earth, Tomorrowland Speedway, Kali River Rapids. They are difficult because the ride vehicle is down low, or below ground level, or they shape of the ride vehicle makes it hard to get in. Try sitting on the floor and pushing up to a chair without using your legs to get a feel for it. 🙂
On the list of not possible for someone who can’t walk, Peter Pan, TTA among others.
Thanks for the podcast. I love to listen when I can’t actually be in Disney.
Thanks Laurie for the information and experience. Yeah we think Disney is one of the best vacation spots for accessibility especially when you travel overseas, it’s pretty amazing how well Disney does it. I think the only real issue was the Evacuation off of the 7 Dwarfs Roller Coaster and getting out of the car from it sitting on the track in one of the ride scenes and then having to walk all the way to the front of the ride from the emergency exit to get the wheelchairs for the two people in our party. But the other rides all were great and I have seen how well the Disney buses do with wheelchairs. It’s more of a challenge loading an ECV in a SUV over and over.
Thanks for listening and have a great time on your next Disney trip.
Steve
I just listened to 50 prime time cafe review episode. It was great hearing your comment on scooters in the park. My wife needs a scooter and my aunt as well. We are avid Disney visitors. Most people do not understand when I tell them how we get dirty looks from guests as we go. They think we think we own the rode. When it is just like you said. We go in a straight line following our party and people are oblivious and cut us off. Heaven forbid that we hit the person who cuts us off. They think it is our fault. As you put it, most of the time it is obvious we have “the right of way” going in a straight line and they step in front of us. The carts do not stop on a dime. Unless you experience what it is like in a scooter, you do not understand.
Thank you for giving your honest feed back on your experience. It is great to hear the experience from an able body person that temporarily has to use the scooter. It gives those that have to use the scooter some credit on what we keep saying all the time about other people. But we take it in stride. There have been only a few instances where the dirty looks stole our Disney Magic.
If you are lucky you might have seen me in the parks yelling “PARDON CART COMING THROUGH” at the top of my voice. The other thing I do is stick out me elbows as a blocker for my wife as I walk in front of her. This helps to reduce the amount of “cutting off” as we are going in a straight line. This is not being rude just a polite ways to let them know we are there.
I also encourage anyone in a scooter to try Disney. They are the most accommodating.
We had an absolute horrible experience here a couple of weeks ago and I’m still trying to figure out how to directly make a complaint to the actual management here. I was in the bathroom losing what little lunch I did eat here while hubby paid the bill and left, so I was unable to do so immediately after (just wanted to get out of there). Service was really awful, we waited much too long for some of the worst food I’ve ever been served on property. The waitress was a witch (sorry if its undisneylike but its the truth), threw the straws at us, grumpy w/ no fun interaction and forced my daughter to eat the wrong dessert she brought out. No joke. The worst experience in Disney dining I’ve ever had, and I’ve ate just about everywhere on property! Not to mention they charged me a cancellation fee for failure to show, in which I called to get straightened out (still waiting for a credit to my account on that one). This place was just horrid. I’m not one to ever say “never” , but this place….NEVER EVER AGAIN.